Coherent optical array receiver for PPM signals under atmospheric turbulence

Adaptive combining of experimentally obtained heterodyned pulse position modulated (PPM) signals with pulse-to-pulse coherence, in the presence of simulated spatial distortions resembling atmospheric turbulence, is demonstrated. The adaptively combined PPM signals are phased up via an least-mean-square algorithm suitably optimized to operate with PPM in the presence of additive shot noise. A convergence analysis of the algorithm is presented, and results with both computer simulated and experimentally obtained PPM signals are analyzed.